HAPPY HALLOWEEN from the STODDARDS!

FRANK:
The greatest example of evil not recognizing itself...is the fact that Don always denies being evil.

Rod Roddy...the Come On Down voice of The Price is Right died of Breast Cancer. Yes you read that right...BREAST CANCER. Now I knew he was a tubby little bitch but that's just fuckin weird. I hope I'm man enough to go the right way...PROSTRATE GONNA GET ME.

So today we're living in a haze. All the smoke from the California fires have made their way over the mountains and engulfed Las Vegas. Seriously. From the Rio I can't see the Mandalay Bay. That's not that far away. Crazy shit that smoke. Makes everything stink a lot too. The bitch of it all is they are already starting to spread the terrorist rumor. Even as little as five years ago this would have been the work of Arsenists. Now it's the work of Terrorists. If this truly is a man made fire you watch...before it's all over...whoever started it all will have links to the Al Quieda and funded through dirty dirty iraqi money. Muhammed Al Shishkabob is running through the California Forrests with a torch right now screaming die American Piggies...or at least John Ashcroft would have us thinking so.
I can't wait till the fire reaches all the Marijuanna Cash Crops and that smoke makes it over the mountain.

Do you ever get that sour taste on the back of your tongue that no amount of water will get rid of. Yeah...me too. My stomach is about to burst with all the water inside me...i'm gonna have to pee like a little bitch...but that taste in my mouth just won't go away. Even if it's psychosomatic...my tongue still tastes funny.

Erica is teaching herself programming. Why? Because she's bored and it excites her. It excites me to, because I've never understood things like that. I don't know how all of a sudden she just knows something new. Where does this new knowelege come from? She doesn't get it from a book...or from a teacher...or from a friend who already has the answer...she just gets it. How? Magically...out of the air...new information enters her mind. I think it's absolutely fascinating. It also makes me feel like a complete dumbass. I don't think information has ever just entered my head. All the stuff I think about has been thought about for thousands of years already, by much better thinkers than myself.
Actually I believe its just one more manifestation of this whole language thing she's on. She's teaching herself a language. She's learning how to communicate with machines.. Make them do what she wants. I'm too lazy for all that. I think about a lot of things that I can't effect or change. I don't want to talk to my machine. I just want to steal more music. I also want to end world hunger...but until then...just...whatever. Erica's cool. I'm alone in my world...but then again aren't we all. I like being alone in my world, because then I'm the ruler of it. If someone else comes in...already we have competition. And I'm not a great competitor. I'm a much better spectator. Or is it voyeur. Hmmm.

Daylight-savings isle three, one hour free with purchase. I don't think that one hour is supposed to cause jet lag...but...hmmm. Last night plagued with horribly violent dreams, and the scariest part about it all was my complete lack of reaction to them upon waking. I have seen things in my sleep that no one should ever see. Yet I continue in the daytime undisturbed. Or am I? I feel a little ill today. Not all functions functioning. Is this my reaction? I am normal because I say so. I am tired because sometimes I have no other choice. I think my brain pukes and no one wants to clean that shit up. 12 people burned to death in california today, and I'm excited because I can turn down my thermostat tonight. I was told again last night that I have no soul. I'm pretty sure he was joking...but it did come out of nowhere, and he does hardly know me. It used to take people longer to make that observation. Maybe my internal marketing department got an upgrade. My advertising is mych slicker and more subtle...rendering it more efficient. Of course I am rambling, and my body is begging me to stop with the junk food. Pleading. I don't stop though. I'm in love with the dandy warhols, they make great insence stick watching music. I wonder if they do that on purpose. Once a year we get a 25 hour day. This was it. How did you spend your extra hour. This is the one single time a year when you actually get your wish for more hours in a day. I hope it was productive. I hope that sometimes your soul sings. I hope it makes beautiful music. I hope that sometimes you hold something precious in your hands, and realize that you won't always be able to do that. I hope that sometimes you recognize there is a greatness in you that you can get if you want. I hope you know that you are loved. Sometimes life is shit, that is when it's potentially the greatest. Because that is when we are most open to newness. I think it's time...sometimes to stop. To look. To feel air in our lungs. To hear what the universe is singing. Aparrently it's in b flat. Sing on universe...take no notice of me...I've got my shit covered.

I don't know what all ya'all are bitchin about...
MY PENIS IS FRICKIN HUGE
the end

In my imagination you are all happy. Wether this is true or not is irrelevant to the scenerio. I also imagine that you are all searching for something. For everyone it's something different, and even in my imagination I don't know what it is. I don't like to fill in all the blanks. I only know what I'm searching for. I know that I want it more than anything else in the world...and I hope I never get it. Because if I do...then I won't be searching anymore...and what fun is that? I hope that I am never complete. How perfectly boring that would be. I wish I could see most of you a lot more than I do. I know that I want to do theatre with all of you more than I do. For those of you that I am always working with...Thank you. For those who I'm not...please come play with me someday. I think that there are good things waiting for us.
You'll have to forgive me...I'm a bit tired tonight. I am thinking of all of you. Naked.

I wrote a five page short story last night. When I got done I realized that the story itself is much longer than that...so now I will probably write a few words a day on it and see where it goes. I've backed myself into a research corner as well. I'm actually going to have to do some. Erica read it, and critiqued it. She's so smart. She's always bringing up good points and great questions. It made me really miss our little writing group we had back in Logan. Back when I had a reason to write for deadline. Now I write because I love writing, but sometimes it will take me months to eek out a simple little thought. Last night my brain puked, and to my great delight, my new character surprised me. I love when they do that. Someday I hope to have a group like that again. Some of us here have batted the idea around, but...well...here we are. Anyway I hope this day sees all of you well. I think I'm going to start another blog...as if I didn't already have enough. Till next time...

every day, in every way, i'm getting fatter and fatter....

I used to think I was cynical. Maybe I was, but it wasn't real cynicism...it was trendy cynicism. You know...I was in my mid twenties...I was raised on television and fast food. I didn't understand almost everything...still don't, but I am slower to judge. I don't believe in being cynical anymore. I don't think I ever did. It just made some people laugh. Now I long for simplicity. And boobs. And a soundtrack. Dick Clark once said music was the soundtrack of our lives...I say no shit dumbass...what else would be...bird whistles? I still want one though. Like a real soundtrack. A theme that follows me around. I also want to learn how to walk in slow motion. I love classical music. I'll never know as much about it as frank...I just know I love it. I also know I hate when people feel they have to fuck with it. It's already perfect...it doesn't need a techno/electronic beat behind it. I'll take beethoven's fifth over a fifth of beethoven anyday. I like to laugh. I wish I was as clever as I want to be. My thoughts come to me in one and a half second sound bites. I get all of my news in two easy to read sentences at the bottom oof cnn's screen. I don't think people really have principals anymore. We've replaced them with pop ideals. I don't need wisdom...just a nice tidy ending to my thirty minute dilema. Two hour dilema if I choose a movie over tv...which I usually do. Oh well...sometimes...I get to truly be part of something beautiful. Not every day...but more than some people ever get in an entire lifetime. I live for beauty. Sometimes I have to look for it. That makes it better though. Sometimes I have to get a group of people together and create it...that's the best. Thanks to you who have created beauty with me. Here's to all the future beauty.

I like sleep. It seems to happen so rarely. Like a solar eclipse sleep comes into my life rarely, and often I'm too busy to catch it anyways. It hints at me like a cheap agatha christie novel that I solve to soon to be entertaining. I crave it. I want it. I'll just get into it when I have to get out of it. The real funny thing is that I truly wish I could live my life without it. There are way too many things that i want to do before I die, and fully a third of my life dissapears into a strange subconcious void. Ah well. All for the best I suppose. I hate baseball. Go cubs. I hate stupid television, but of course that presupposes that there is smart television. Oh well, I hate people that are smarter than me...except for you of course. My life is full of hate. No I take that back. My life is full of indifference. I try to hate, but all the things that I claim to hate...i only truly hate while I'm actually wasting the time to think about the things that I claim to hate. I hate aging. I'm not doing it well. I'm too tired. I want chocolate, but I want to feel that I can enjoy the chocolate without thinking once of getting fat. I want to direct a masterpiece. Masterpiece theatre...yeah...that's it. I'm rambling...but what's worse...my rambling, or you reading my rambling to get to a point. Guess what...if you haven't guessed by now...I never get to the point. Why? Because there isn't one. If there was a point, and we all knew what it was...well then...what would be the point. It's the journey not the destination that's important. I wish I was smart enough to have come up with that on my own. We all travel so many roads, God willing we get to travel a short distance together now and then. What good is a trip without someone to share it with...Thank God it's you. I love all of you.

As per usual Frank got me to thinkin. Damn that guy. I like my thoughtless bland days with no questions or concerns. Funny thing though...all right I'm rambling. Yes we live in a violent, fear based society. Nothing we can do about that. When I was a young scrawny child, I would watch television. Much more than I do now. I have a memory of watching a show...I was very young, and a character died. I became incredibly upset. Probably started crying. To pacify me, my mother educated me on the un-reality of TV. It's not real. It's just pretend. To prove it further, she showed me another program with this same actor in another role...not dying. Still alive. Still pretending something new. This was a comforting thought. Immediately all death went into fiction. I could watch, and still do, the most violent of television and films. Hollywood gore is obtrusive, silly, disgusting, as I saw yesterday in a fantastic film called Kill Bill, even downright funny. Aside from all of this, no matter how silly, funny, or disgusting, one thing remains. It's always fake. Pretend. Story telling for our violent fear based society.
A few months back while searching the video archives at work I found, in the back corner, a video tape titled traces of death. Same thing as faces of death, or any number of other videos like that. I had heard of these films...collections...whatever, but I had never actually seen one. Of course my curious nature took control and off I went to watch said film. Interesting thing happened. As I'm watching real scenes of actual death. Some even famous, that have been discussed and talked about in other places...all of those childhood feelings came rushing back. I had no mother this time to tell me that it's just pretend. My defense mechanism against these visual images was completely shattered. I felt sick. Disgusted. Actually horrified. I truly, honestly, wanted to weep like I did as a child. I was a five year old in front of the tv again. I turned off the tape, put it away, and there it sits to this day.
For the first time in my life I understood a lot of things. I knew why there were people who strongly advocated media censorship. I knew what tru pornography was. Not the exploitation of sex, but the absolute exploitation of life. The loss of it. I wanted to burn that tape and every one like it. The feelings were so strong I couldn't think of anything else. Of course those feeling left, and I'm back to little old me. But I have no interest in watching that tape again. I never will. Censorship starts with the self...I know my limits. I know what I won't support. So Frank...I don't believe what Hobbes said is true. Not for me at least. There can never be an authority to hold that reign over people. The stupidest thing I've heard in years is the idea of a porn czar. Whatever...different topic, and I've gone on long enough. I do believe in something that was said once. It comes from a man who started a religion. A religion I once believed in. Regardless of where I am morally, or who this man ever was. He said great things. The best was...I think..."Teach them correct principals, and let them govern themselves." Impossible I know...but again, it starts with me. Of course by the same token I often think of those young shipwrecked boys on GOlding's island. If only we could find the beast.

So I get home tonight a little after midnight, realizing that this weekend has been a whirlwind. The weekend that she was going away and I could relax and get things done. Fat chance. It seems I spent almost all of my spare time at work. Funny how something that doesn't even exist can just slip right past you. I look down as I'm opening my front door and there are two twinkies sitting there. There's a note with them that says eat me. So I do. They're a little stale, but probably just from sitting out in the hot sun all day...who knows when they were put there...I left this my house this morning. Erica won't get any of the stale twinkie...but hey...I didn't get any disneyland, so I guess it all balances out in the end.
A tiger eats Roy Horn (Seigfreid and Roy...like you haven't heard)...and now 250 theatre techs are out of work, as sad and horrible as this is...the only thought that comes into my mind is..."well, it was only a matter of time." You see, I've seen enough croc hunter and jeff corwin to know that there's no such thing as a tame tiger. So now 250 theatre techs are pounding the pavement looking for work. Only thing is...all the shows in vegas are already pretty well established and not looking for techs. Now these people will hit the unemployment lines just so their kids can eat and wear shoes. And this is how just one out of place white bengal tiger can effect the entire economy of a city. Oh yeah, and Roy probably won't die...but he could. The tiger really was instinctively doing all the preperations on him for dinner. It's true. The day Buffalo Billy goes for Ronn Lucas's jugular is the day I quit tech theatre forever. I'll be totaly freaked out.

Tonight the sky was on fire as I walked into work. The sun's residue leaking over the horizon, catching the clouds and igniting them in deep pinks and reds. Yeah...it was just like that. I'll miss it tomorrow. That's okay though, because the sunset that I saw tonight will never happen again. Every single moment in our lives is unrepeatable. Even if acts are performed over and over and over again...each is it's own unique moment. Savor them. Like sunsets, but never try to repeat them. Just create new ones...all the time. Every sunset is beautiful...and even if it isn't...the next one might be. Different, but beautiful.

I used to have this feeling. I was a bit younger, and I can't describe it. I was questioning everything, and I liked it. I was single, and unafraid, and my thoughts were just becoming my own. I was sexually interested in everyone, but it didn't really matter. I was also just plain interested. I had a power, a fearless ache and hunger for life. The world was new, and I would live forever. I loved it. Now the closest I can get to that feeling is the nostalgia for it. I haven't lost the hunger for life, but it's different. I have different questions. I am now much more selective in who I am interested in. I have been called a snob for this. Cliqueish...oh well, perhaps I am. Everything I do is different than what I thought I would do. I am not unhappy by any means...just a different type of happy. A fuller happy. A truer happy. A happy with a sadness behind it. But sad isn't the right word. I have lost my innocence. But I don't miss it. I reflect on it however. Youth truly is wasted on the young. Knowledge is power, but it's also false. The things I used to know are now unclear. Oh well. I hate movies and plays where the old people are nothing but well springs of witty remarks. Clever contraptions of rhetoric based on a long life of experience. Just once I want to hear some old fart say "Fucked if I know." Here's what I know. I believe in God. I believe in God because I fear him less than the alternative. I would rather suffer God's eternal burning wrath...than to simply not exist at all. I don't fear death...as long as there truly is something going on after it. Worse than that I fear not living. I want to experience almost everything. I want to taste almost everything. I want to run...to climb...to reach beyond what I once thought possible, because in my glorious youth, although I had the world at my fingers...I had nothing on my mind. Now I do. Now I wonder how much love...attention...and touch really are connected. Thanks for that Erica. I long for touch as much as anybody...but not from just anybody. You have all touched me. But here we are...communicating through a box. Travelling through time. Oh well, time won't miss us.